Myanmar

Every day of her life, Lu Nan walked for four hours to collect water for her family from the river. Sometimes her children came too, but they could only carry 20 litres on each trip as the path was difficult and Lu Nan had only one container.

Li Wei Lin, a mother of five children from Par Wai Village in Kokang, told WFP that according to the Kokang tradition, women always come second after men. They are not allowed to talk in public places, nor travel out of the village.

A cutting-edge new software package is helping rapid response teams be ready when disaster strikes. Known as DeMist, the programme simulates a wide range of emergencies, pitting aid workers in the same situations they face while responding to real-life crises.

For people whose lives were wrecked last year by Cyclone Nargis, it can take a long time to pick up the pieces and start looking to the future. But 20-year-old Aye Aye Thin has managed. She's driving her community’s recovery forward by helping rebuild a key road. Watch video

New Zealander Alastair Cook has been a WFP logistics officer since 2004, facing many challenging situations, including the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar. He says the toughest job he's faced so far was in Kenya, after the election violence had spread terror among WFP beneficiaries.

Cyclone Nargis swept across southern Myanmar on the evening of 2 May, leaving a trail of death and destruction before tapering off the next day. The winds and tidal surge caused by the cyclone damaged much of the fertile Ayeyarwady delta, and Yangon, the nation's main city and former capital.

The devastation of Cyclone Nargis – the storm that struck Myanmar’s Ayeyarwaddy Delta on 2 May 2008 – is still visible. The effects of that devastation mean that WFP's work in the region is far from over. WFP's Chris Kaye says many livelihoods have been lost.

Much of the destruction caused by Cyclone Nargis – the merciless storm that struck Myanmar two months ago – is still visible. Large portions of the country’s cultivable land and vital crops have been flooded and rendered useless by the catastrophic tidal surge that drove inland from the Indian Ocean.